Crew: Slaughter in Seattle

Wednesday

Aug 31, 2011 at 12:01 AMSep 1, 2011 at 6:58 PM

Saturday's Crew game was simply gruesome. Seattle came away with a triumphant 6-2 victory; Columbus came away humiliated. Let's step back and make sense of the pummeling as the Crew licks its wounds during a week off.

Saturday's Crew game was simply gruesome. Seattle came away with a triumphant 6-2 victory; Columbus came away humiliated. Let's step back and make sense of the pummeling as the Crew licks its wounds during a week off.

A historic day (in a bad way): Columbus tied a longstanding club record for goals surrendered. Nobody had poured in six goals against the Crew since the inaugural 1996 season, when they lost 6-4 to Kansas City (then known as the Wiz - hehe).

A historic day (in a good way): This is not how Jeff Cunningham pictured breaking Jaime Moreno's all-time MLS goals record.

A historic day (in a weird way): Josh Gardner is not the first Crew player to score a goal and an own-goal in the same game - that would be World Cup veteran Brian Maisonneuve - but he was the first to do it within a 60-second span. The 73rd minute was an awkward one for Gardner, who celebrated his incredible free kick strike by deflecting a Seattle pass into his own net.

Blows to the confidence and reputation : A loss is a loss. In the standings, there's no difference between a shellacking like this one and a 1-0 barnburner (unless you count a stiff blow to the goal differential). But when you get blown out like the Crew did Saturday, people notice. And while a poor reputation doesn't lose games, a broken spirit does.

The ( non- ) battle for East-West supremacy : Crew nation has done a lot of chest-thumping ever since Columbus ascended to first place in the East. But a manhandling by the West's second-place team takes a lot of shine off that Eastern Conference crown. The fact that the East's second- and third-place teams also lost this weekend only adds to the case for Western domination. Then there's the fact that Western powers Los Angeles, Seattle and Dallas are all at least two wins better than East-leading Columbus. The balance of power continues to tilt left in MLS, and violently so.

Sigi 's wizardry: The Crew remains winless against Seattle, racking up three draws and four losses since the Sounders joined MLS in 2009. Chalk up some of the dominance to ex-Crew coach Sigi Schmid, who left the Midwest after MLS Cup 2008 to helm Seattle's team. Head-to-head, Schmid continues to outcoach his former assistant Robert Warzycha.